Novi puts wrap on season with 21-19 win

Novi football won’t be a part of the postseason, but the Wildcats took some solace from their 2014 campaign Friday night with a 21-19 victory over visiting Howell.

Novi held off a late Howell fourth-quarter rally to finish its season at 4-5 overall.

“It’s not the overall record that I wanted for our program, but they’ve made some strides and I feel they’re going in the right direction,” Novi coach Jeff Burnside said. “I probably have to preach more patience, including to myself, because it’s hard to be patient and I know that.”

Novi got on the scoreboard with three minutes left in the opening quarter following a seven-play, 51-yard drive capped by senior Matt Sabo’s 8-yard touchdown run. Kent Maidens converted the extra-point kick.

Howell (4-5) then answered with 1:33 to go in the same quarter on a Greg Kearns 30-yard field goal to trim the deficit to 7-3.

Junior Emanuel Jackson, who rushed for a game-best 136 yards on 20 carries, then scored a pair of second-quarter TDs – the first coming on a 7-yard run with 6:05 left, followed by a 21-yard run with 3:04 to go. He also set a school record with 2,067 career yards rushing in the process.

Patrick Wojtylo’s interception led to Jackson’s second TD run.

Wojtylo, a senior linebacker, finished the night with a team-best 18 tackles, including six solo and eight assists.

“He’s a real good player and has kind of been the anchor of our defense all year,” Burnside said of the 5-foot-9, 194-pound Wojtylo. “It was our best defensive performance of the year, by far. I think we kept them to under 300 (total) yards for the first time all year. We finally had some turnovers tonight, made some big-time short yardage stops, did some great things tonight and good to win a game like that.”

Howell, however, trimmed the deficit to 21-10 after three quarters thanks to an 11-play, 87-yard dive that culminated in Austin Fournier’s 5-yard TD pass to Evan Siemen with 2:35 left.

And with 10:15 left in the final quarter, Kearns made it a one-score game when he booted a 28-yard field goal to pull the Highlanders to within 21-13. An interception by Michael Betz set up the score.

Howell then drove 80 yards in eight plays, resulting in a 3-yard TD run by Thomas Lassitter with only 2:18 remaining. Down by only two, quarterback Brett Chaperon (105 yards on 17 carries) was stopped short of the goal line on the two-point conversion attempt to keep the score at 21-19.

The game was far from over, as the Highlanders’ Nick Rauch successfully recovered the onside kick at the Novi 42.

But a Chaperon pass was intercepted by Aaron Pringle with just 1:02 remaining to end the suspense.

“It was like two teams with nine lives and I think we ended up with one less life at the end,” Burnside said. “It was an interesting game. Howell’s kids fought hard, our kids fought hard. And our defense stepped up and made plays they needed tonight. They did a great job.”

Connor Howell collected four solo and five tackles, including a sack. Christian Durham was in on seven tackles for Novi.

But despite the season-ending victory, it will be the sixth straight year that Novi has missed the playoffs, something that doesn’t sit well with Burnside, who is 8-10 overall in his first two seasons.

“I feel disappointed, I feel like I let our kids down,” he said. “I think that’s the way anybody would feel, a couple of plays here and there from being a playoff team. You feel like you let 36 seniors down. It’s frustrating to me, but on the other hand our kids have done some things this year that we haven’t done in this program for a long time.”

Jackson, meanwhile, broke season records for all-purpose yards (2,002), TDs (23) and points (138). He now holds the career mark for all-purpose yards (3,749) and TDs (38).

Another plus to the 2014 season was a 50-33 win over KLAA Central and Kensington Conference champ South Lyon, which finished 8-1 overall.

“We finally beat a playoff team for the first time since 2008, so we’ve proven we can play with those teams,” Burnside said. “We were in every ballgame. A year ago, I couldn’t say that because weren’t in every ballgame. We got manhandled in some games last year. This year, against some pretty good opponents, we were in every football game and had a chance to win.”